Northern Sudanese friends converse in a restaurant where life is comfortable. In their civilized world, they are removed from the war in the south.

From my journal:

I buy a sheep and the locals slaughter it for dinner—they speak their own language. We have three local guides that strapped our stuff on their donkeys and we have one other local guide from Nyala who speaks their language, Arabic and a little English. Also in this group is the fixer from Khartoum and Adil our driver.

I realize when I have to pay for the sheep that Yahia has no money—that is why I have been living on peanuts and bread the last two days. Everyone else is really hungry by now because Yahia hasn’t been feeding them at all. The dinner of mutton is to placate this entourage who are a long way from home. I am flying back, I wonder how they will drive back for 3 days with no money.

I ride one of the donkeys most of the way back because of tender knees and blisters. We are out later this time and the heat of the day is killing everyone. We’ve gone thru all our water and still have an hour or so to go to get to the village. When we finally get back I find out even Adil wasn’t left any food. All he’s had in the time we’ve been gone is tea. I give him the last of my peanuts.

I paid the local guides and gave one guide with a huge neck goiter my pota aqua tablets—if the iodine doesn’t help him, at least he will have clean water to drink.